Amidst the hubris of the pope calling it quits and Miss Delaware relinquishing her sash due to porn allegations, it’s important we take a step back and discuss the elephant in the room—namely, racism. While the world collapses around us and we all complain about how hard it is to get by, people of color are forced to look up to our position and say, “I’d give the world for your problems.” This is because no matter how bad things appear to be, they are always worse when you are born without privileges.

Nobody clutches their purse to their side when an Asian walks into the elevator. If an Asian applies for a job at a bank or on the police force, he or she is welcomed with open arms. When an Asian commits a crime, people are shocked. When an Asian is appointed to the head of the Department of Energy, everyone knowingly nods their head. Asian privilege pervades every part of our day-to-day life and it’s time they joined the conversation about race.

Though they comprise less than 4.8% of the American population, they make up 8.3% of all doctors. Only 2.3% of doctors are African American, yet they’re 13% of the population. Thirty percent of African American men will go to jail, but only 1.6% of prisoners are Asian. Nobody sees the problem with that?

McGill University is one of the most elite schools in North America, and to walk through their campus is to be transported into a pastoral Chinatown. This is true of all Ivy League schools. Asian Americans have the highest education level of any racial demographic and they’re also the wealthiest. While African American households earned an average of $30,939 in 2005, Asian Americans walked away with twice that.

The reason for this is simple: PRIVILEGE.

Though many Asians come here with little or no money and live in rough neighborhoods, they are lifted out of this disadvantage within a generation and are soon living an upper-middle-class lifestyle. This is because in America, Asians live a disproportionately advantaged life where things are simply handed to them. Asians turn on the TV and they see George Takei driving a spaceship. When they’re told he’s a fictional character, they jump to real-life astronaut Dr. Eugene Trinh. Asians are overrepresented in science, medicine, law, finance, education, and virtually everything that generates wealth. They are drastically overrepresented in Nobel Prizes. These arrogant Orientals flaunt the racist moniker “model minority.” As a people, these Asians need to recognize they got to where they are not by the virtue of hard work but by stepping on the backs of others. I’m not saying Asians should be paying the rest of us reparations, but a simple “dùi bù qĭ” would be nice. (Thanks, Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang for the link!) They need to recognize that their position is innately unfair. They need to acknowledge they are lucky. And most importantly, they need to stop it right now.

Asian privilege is, if you will, an “invisible knapsack” of unearned perks and benefits that an Asian is able to unpack wherever he or she goes—even if they aren’t in Asia. Asian privilege is very, very real and yet nobody’s talking about it. Asians can purchase real estate in virtually every neighborhood they want. Nobody worries about property values when an Asian moves in the neighborhood. When asking for a loan or writing a check, an Asian never has to be concerned with how he or she will be perceived. Asians can say swear words or wear secondhand clothes without anyone assuming it’s due to poverty or illiteracy. When driving a nice vehicle in a bad part of town, an Asian rarely has to worry about being pulled over. Even when he or she does get pulled over, he or she never wonders if it’s because of his or her race. If an Asian gets into a good school, other students don’t assume it’s because of affirmative action. An Asian can listen to rap music very loudly on a boom box while riding the New York subway without anyone wondering if they’re going to get stabbed.

When one opens the discourse to this taboo we learn many terms that had previously been ignored. “Earned strength” is very different from “unearned power.” Asians are “overprivileged” and enjoy this “unacknowledged power” in a totally “incognizant” way. Privilege can look like power when it is in fact permission to escape or dominate. You don’t need epicanthic folds to see that simply by the virtue of their success Asians are seriously and systematically oppressing people of color. To be overrepresented in a field is to dominate those who are not proportionately represented. Whether they know it or not, simply existing can be tantamount to a hate crime.

So what do we do? How do we change the latent inequality that Asians exploit? Do we penalize them? Ideally we would, but no, we don’t. The first thing we have to do is join the conversation. Using your voice is the first step to raising awareness, not just parochially but in a transnational sense. We need to redesign social systems where Asians are not 75% to 80% of university mathematics departments. By staying cloaked in the myth of meritocracy we are denying the latent power of the underprivileged.

Look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki today and look at Detroit. While Asians are constantly flooded with opportunities to rebuild, cities of color are left to rot. Asians shamelessly discuss “Asian Power” and encourage their children to stay within their race. When Asians such as New York Times reporter Michael Luo watch Jeremy Lin score 25 points, they are filled with joy and pride. This, mind you, is from a country that killed 50 million people.

One of the few Americans to actually get off her ass and push for change is California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who pronounces her last name exactly like Bruce Lee. You might remember her from the NOH8 campaign where she wrote on her face. She is leading an initiative to “create a federal Department of Peacebuilding that would cultivate peace and take on the causes of violence and conflict.” This is about literally changing the plasticity of the brain and permanently erasing the hatred that fosters inequality.

The first step for this department will probably be addressing the dangers of Asian privilege and working to unravel the tangled web it has weaved. We pay our government to lead us to prosperity and protect us from evil. If one group is receiving privileges over another, that is a form of assault and it’s up to elected officials such as Barbara Lee to protect us. She assures us she will.

Let’s work together to break the silence. A drop in the bucket seems small until you see all the ripples it makes. To tackle Asian privilege and bring them down to where the rest of us are, we need systemic change on a global level. The government needs to get involved. Tax dollars have to be used and you can be sure jobs will be created. Asian American success has been awarded to them arbitrarily and it’s up to us to take back the power and eradicate this unearned system of advantage. We need to transform society to the point where privilege is not slanted in anyone’s favor.
http://takimag.com/article/tackling_asian_privilege_gavin_mcinnes/print#ixzz2NNihYByk

Resolution on the RCMP’s Interactions with the LGBTT Community
Submitted by the Quebec Section

BE IT RESOLVED that the government of Canada commission a report assessing the RCMP’s interactions with LGBTT individuals and the prevalence of lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia, heterosexism, and cissexism in the RCMP.

Ultimately, however, if after all these centuries of trying to improve society based on abstract ideas of justice have only made life worse than it would have been under pre-Enlightenment social systems, the time has come to simply give up the whole project and revert to traditional forms whose basis we might not be able to establish rationally, but which have the evidence of history to support them.

... simply give up the whole project and revert to traditional forms whose basis we might not be able to establish rationally ...

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... your theology is mostly irrelevant to us ...

These 'neoreactionary' bloggers and hangers-on tend to be alienated rationalists.

They say they don't fit into this society, but they would not fit into a traditional society either. Because traditional forms of society have theological underpinnings.

They want the ancien regime without the Church. But that's not the ancien regime.

They want social concord and unity, but they want privately to exempt themselves from it, and remain skeptics.

But in a traditional society, that would make them the worm in the apple, wouldn't it ?

So from what cloth are they cut ?

They want to be peasants serving a King with divine rights from a God they don't believe in. I do wonder if people who think like this realize they'd mostly be peasants or low class nothings, and if that's actually what they want.

These 'neoreactionary' bloggers and hangers-on tend to be alienated rationalists.

They say they don't fit into this society, but they would not fit into a traditional society either. Because traditional forms of society have theological underpinnings.

They want the ancien regime without the Church. But that's not the ancien regime.

They want social concord and unity, but they want privately to exempt themselves from it, and remain skeptics.

But in a traditional society, that would make them the worm in the apple, wouldn't it ?

So from what cloth are they cut ?

Basically, they're fascists but don't want to be dropping f-bombs all over the place. I'm more in line with Franco. They're (we're) reading Moldbug, who is a Jew (his parents were devout internationalist communists who just so happened to work for the American State Dept - go figure) and not about to advocate a Catholic/etc ethno-state, which is what these alienated bloggers seem to want.

Though, maybe reactionary is best to describe them. They're reacting to progressivism and want it smashed into a trillion pieces (along with the progs themselves). They're starting from the position that progs are liars, progress isn't, democracy is a sham and burn it all. Fair enough, right? I think it is up to people like you to make the case of where to go.

They want to be peasants serving a King with divine rights from a God they don't believe in.

I am doing my taxes on another screen. I'm paying a ridiculous sum of money to the entity that summarily executes citizens.

What planet are you on.

There were no taxes in the middle ages? I mean what's your point, it's not that I'm saying that things are great now, but that the idea that things were great, or even better, then is absurd.

The taxes were a fraction of what we pay. Shit, add in inflation... It's a complete freak show.

"Things" are better now, to the extent they are better now, because of the introduction of penicillin and the rest. Democracy, egalitarianism.. They're free loading off the gains of brilliant men.

Though, the opposite of this is that once these governments got their hands on technology they used it to cull massive portions of their and other citizens. Now we're facing a world of micro-drones and google glasses and Huxley was right.

Last edited by Titus on Mon Apr 08, 2013 6:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

They want to be peasants serving a King with divine rights from a God they don't believe in.

I am doing my taxes on another screen. I'm paying a ridiculous sum of money to the entity that summarily executes citizens.

What planet are you on.

There were no taxes in the middle ages? I mean what's your point, it's not that I'm saying that things are great now, but that the idea that things were great, or even better, then is absurd.

The taxes were a fraction of what we pay. Shit, add in inflation... It's a complete freak show.

"Things" are better now, to the extent they are better now, because of the introduction of penicillin and the rest. Democracy, egalitarianism.. They're free loading off the gains of brilliant men.

Though, the opposite of this is that once these governments got their hands on technology they used it to cull massive portions of their and other citizens. Now we're facing a world of micro-droes and google glasses.

These brilliant men, due to enlightenment thinking, etc. Also aren't being burned as heretics, being given more chances to get schooling, etc. etc. I'd take modern day tax rates over feudalism and being tied to the land, your lord, whatever. I am curious though, what time period are we trying to return to, who is our ideal enlightened despot from history? In these modern days it seems like the closest thing we have to what you want is Saudi Arabia.

This is a prog fiction, that "science" started with the enlightenment. I toured a 2200 year old sanitation system on an Italian island last summer. 2200!! When was the enlightenment? When did it end?

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Also aren't being burned as heretics

Also prog fiction. Hey, did you know that Galileo repented just like James Waston. Where is your enlightenment now?

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... schooling

Secular religion.

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I'd take modern day tax rates over feudalism and being tied to the land, your lord, whatever.

Not to be rude, but you pay what % in taxes this year? Any?

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In these modern days it seems like the closest thing we have to what you want is Saudi Arabia.

More prog fiction (ie the opposite of us is Saudi. No, it isn't).

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who is our ideal enlightened despot from history

Despot! Progs and the abuse of language! Where does a despot end and Obama begin? Too difficult? Where does a popular despot end a democracy begin? Still too much? Where does the enlightenment end and post-modernity begin? Still?